OneDrive new USB drive - Unaccounted space

[ChrisGreaves]

In the keen anticipation of a new Win11 laptop with SSD etc, possibly even a newer version of MSOffice, I splashed out an purchased a nominally 2TB USB drive.

OneTouch_01.png

It arrived with a slew of PDFs etc which I copied holus-bolus into a folder on my data partition, then deleted from the 2TB drive.
The 2TB drive is pre-formatted, and I had thought I would have to format it.

OneTouch_02.png

That done, Win7 reports about 2M still in use.

Question1: What is this 2MB being used for?
Question2: What might happen if I format even this 2MB out of sight?
Question3: What will happen if I tell *crypt to reformat and encrypt the device. That is, the entire drive?

Yes, I have worked out that I am asking about a mere 0.002% of the (roughly) $cdn100 (about one-sixth of a penny), but as always, I am curious about any new technology.
I know it is significant that the 30MB of files I deleted do not appear in the first image; Windows can/does not graphically represent 0.002% of a volume!

Thanks, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

... a nominally 2TB USB drive.OneTouch_01.png

OneTouch_03.png

I should add that Disk Management tells me that the drive is in exFAT format,
Question 4: whatever that is?

My understanding is that NTFS is all the rage, so
Question 5: I should reformat it anyway, into NTFS style?

Thanks, Chris

[StuartR]

exFAT is extended FAT, this has some benefits over NTFS - such as using fewer resources and being compatible with older operating systems. Also compatible with many digital cameras and other non-PC devices.

[stuck]

See also this page:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
and note under 'Features' that is says:

...for the typical user, this enables seamless interoperability between Windows and macOS platforms for files in excess of 4 GB...

Ken

[ChrisGreaves]

and note under 'Features' that is says:

...for the typical user, this enables seamless interoperability between Windows and macOS platforms for files in excess of 4 GB...

@Stuart and Ken
Thank you both.
I note that "exFAT can be used where NTFS is not a feasible solution (due to data-structure overhead), but where a greater file-size limit than that of the standard FAT32 file system (i.e. 4 GB) is required. " but since Everything.exe prefers NTFS, I suspect that I should stick with that.
I do not require Windows/Mac interoperability, and with 2TB I suspect I have plenty of space for (potentially) larger table entries.

I read too that "The standard exFAT implementation is not journaled", but this is a question to post to Everything forums, as the designer makes extensive use of USN journals.

Thanks again, Chris